Field
Aspects of the present invention generally relate to a communication apparatus configured to communicate with other devices via a network.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, close-proximity communication allowing short-range contactless wireless communication using an integrated circuit (IC) card or the like has been used in, for example, electronic commuter passes, electronic money, and the like. Further, mobile phones having functions of an electronic commuter pass and electronic money using close-proximity communication have become widespread.
Examples of existing standards for close-proximity communication include the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)/the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 14443 and ISO/IEC 18092 (hereinafter, referred to as “near field communication (NFC)”). Among communication devices that can perform close-proximity communication according to the NFC standards or the like, a communication device that can output a radio frequency (RF) signal is called a reader/writer, and a communication device such as an IC card or an IC chip that can perform close-proximity communication in response to a signal from a reader/writer is called a tag.
The close-proximity communication technology is increasingly installed not only in mobile phones but also in digital cameras. In digital cameras, the technology is used not for an electronic money function but for a function (so-called “handover”) that facilitates wireless local area network (LAN) connection. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2013-157736 discuses a system in which devices uses NFC to share communication parameters (service set identifier (SSID), password) required for a wireless LAN connection to establish a wireless LAN connection with ease.
In general, this handover function requires a dedicated application for controlling the communication with a digital camera, in addition to an operating system (OS) function. Therefore, a provider company providing the digital camera also provides an application required for the communication with the digital camera. In the handover described above, information for activating a corresponding application is recorded in advance in an NFC tag. A mobile phone reads the recorded information so as to automatically execute and control activation of the application and a handover by the application. As a result, a wireless LAN connection can be realized simply by bringing the devices into close proximity to each other.
However, the application may be sometimes upgraded due to addition of a function or the like or changed to a new application. In these cases, if information for activating the application is not updated together with the change of the application, the OS cannot identify the application to be activated. In other words, if the information stored in the NFC tag remains to be a previous version, there arises a problem that a newly installed application cannot be activated. This is not considered in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2013-157736.